Her mistake was an honest one, and within minutes she had issued a mea culpa to Rick's fans in the comments of the column and removed the offending phrase. But she can't be the only person in America who associates Springfield with his culture-dominating smashit was his only gold single, and his only hit to ride the charts more than half a yearand thinks "one-hit wonder," in an affectionate sense, when she recalls his name.

This nomenclature issue isn't going away. I would like to achieve détente between the general public's definition of "one-hit wonder" and the chart geek's. Can we come up with a workable definition that is fair to the artists in question, adheres to cultural perceptions, and doesn't set Billboard-watchers' teeth on edge?

I speak from personal experience: my molars take to grinding every time VH1, that list-loving TV channel, compiles a countdown of "Greatest One-Hit Wonders." They've done it several timesmost recently, offering countdowns of OHWs of the '80s and '90s. You'd expect lists compiled by a major media outlet possessed of at least a few researchers to have a solid definition of OHWdom. You'd be wrong.

Among the acts VH1 calls one-hit wonders are Norwegian pop kings a-ha, famed in America for the 1985 No. 1 "Take on Me" but also behind the No. 20 followup "The Sun Always Shines on TV"; reversible-pants aficionados Kris Kross, huge for 1992's No. 1 "Jump" but with three (three!) followup Top 20 hits in later years; Men Without Hats, those Teutonic Canucks, beloved for 1983's No. 3 "Safety Dance" but also beloved for 1987's No. 20 "Pop Goes the World"; and shirt-challenged Gerardo, who took "Rico Suave" to No. 7 in 1990 but then, three months later, wound up just nine spots lower with "We Want the Funk." Are any of these dudes' followup hits memorable? Hardly. (I do kind of love "Sun" and "Pop"; and if you don't know what to yell after the phrase Warm it up, Kris!... well, you weren't alive in 1992.) But they were all legitimate radio hits.

And then there's Robert van Winkle. Whatever you think of the erstwhile Vanilla Ice, the inclusion of "Ice Ice Baby" on VH1's one-hit wonders list is perhaps the most egregious offense. In late 1990, just weeks after his Queen-and-Bowie-sampling smash topped the Hot 100, Ice was back with his brand-new invention: a cover of Wild Cherry's 1976 hit "Play That Funky Music" that peaked at No. 4 and went gold. True, it was a godawful remake. (Who could forget its "Go, white boy, go, white boy, go" chant?) It's legit to call Vanilla Ice a flash in the pan. But a one-hit wonder, after a No. 1 hit and a Top Five followup? Robbie deserves better than that.

If I'm going to take issue with VH1's slippery OHW definition, we must define where the line is drawn. Excepting Vanilla Ice, none of the above acts broke into the Top 10 with a followup hitonly the Top 20. Does that count? How strict should we be?

I always hate Bobby McFerrin being referred to as a OHW. He's been an internationally renowned jazz artist for over 3 decades and "Don't Worry Be Happy" was almost an accidental hit. I'm sure he's not complaining about the royalties, but it's not at all typical of his music.

for some of us it's the lack of popchart action that makes an artist attractive even if he or she can be classified a OHW: besides Jimi and the Dead, Janis Joplin, Lou Reed, the Mekons, the Sex Pistols, Laurie Anderson, Patti Smith and dozens of others have legions of loyalists for whom the OHW status is not only senseless but kind of a badge of honor.

Mostly, "one-hit wonder" refers to an artist or band who is defined exclusively by a single song. Vanilla Ice may have had another massive hit, but "Ice, Ice Baby" is the one and only thing the culture associates with him. I'm assuming that's what Powers was thinking re Springfield. Whether or not he had other strong selling singles, to the culture at large he's simply the guy who sang "Jesse's Girl."

too much chart analysis when it comes to declaring acts one hit wonders. That sort of thing fails to take into account the inner workings of the record business and how it pertains to chart positioning, radio and things of that nature.

Yea sure, acts have second and third records that break into the top 10. Does anyone remember them though? Are they culturally significant in any way (good or bad)? There are plenty of acts who have their record driven up the charts in the lead-up to their album drop, then their records fall from the chart.

Also, if you're going to use Hot 100 charts as your only barometer of a hit, you're sorely limiting things. Think of how much R&B and hip-hop, for example doesn't make it onto Top 40 radio. There are one hit wonders everywhere, not just in pop music.

Ultimately, one hit wonder status is a combination of looking at where an artist's record charted and how an artist is remembered. Sure, fans of a specific artist will argue with you until they're blue in the face about every random song an act had, but if the mass of music fans outside of that acts specific fan base only remember said artist for one record or another-- and it was a big hit-- they're bordering on one hit wonder status.

Why is it that an act needs only one other top-40 hit more than six months after the first, but THREE platinum albums? Isn't a second platinum album considerably harder to achieve than a second top-40 hit (especially considering almost nobody puts out two albums within six months of each other)? I think- unless somebody can point out examples of acts with two platinum albums who are still almost indisputably one-hit wonders- two is a sufficiently difficult proposition that it should denote sustained popularity and remove the artist from OHW consideration.

With that said, this was an excellent read and a thorough breakdown of both what makes a one-hit wonder and what people perceive as making one. My minor gripe in no way detracts from the strength of the article.

@Facebones That's also true for a lot of non-American acts who had one U.S. pop hit but had multiple hits elsewhere. It's funny to see artists like, say, A-ha or Spandau Ballet described as one hit wonders, when both acts had a lot of Top 10 hits in the U.K. or Europe. Or I suppose Kylie Minogue is a two hit wonder in the U.S., but on a global scale she's been a Madonna-level superstar for more than two decades. And then you have jazz artists (like McFerrin), soul artists (Freddie Jackson, Stephanie Mills), Christian Contemporary artists (Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith), country artists, metal artists and on and on, who lucked into one or just a few Hot 100 hits, but are major players in their own genre. They are a totally different type of OHW than a one-off fad like "Disco Duck" or Macarena.

@Facebones McFerrin in a way is a perfect OHW, because he's not that big a seller (huge in jazz, but that bar is so low) and his one hit is the very definition of a fluke. Even McFerrin himself thinks so; he's fairly embarrassed by it. I once saw a Charlie Rose interview with McFerring wherein Rose BEGGED McFerrin to sing just a line of "DWBH" and Bobby kept refusing. Good for him.

@Adam Please see Harry's comment, below. You are too loose and non-data-driven, he is too strict. The whole point of the column is finding a middle ground between these two prevailing attitudes regarding OHWs. Chart fans will never be satisfied by a definition of OHW like yours (or Ann's) that is based entirely on subjective cultural attitudes, as I explain (in painstaking detail) above.

@Harry_Knutz Please see Adam's comment, above. You are too strict, he is too loose. The whole point of the column is finding a middle ground between these two prevailing attitudes. If you are unmoved by the X,000 words I wrote, that's fine, but you might reread the breakdown and understand why the "single Top 40 hit" rule is reductive and unsatisfying.

@CesarPelli Hyperbole: Definition: A hyperbole is a literary device wherein the author uses specific words and phrases that exaggerate and overemphasize the basic crux of the statement in order to produce a grander, more noticeable effect. The purpose of hyperbole is to create a larger-than-life effect and overly stress a specific point. Such sentences usually convey an action or sentiment that is generally not practically/ realistically possible or plausible.

I appreciate the thoughtful comment. For the record, I considered and rejected including a rule regarding Top 10 hits on other major song charts (R&B, country, alternative, A/C) but there's no good way to draw the line: Billboard has so many niche charts now (i.e., what is "major"?). However, I would argue that my album rule (Rule 3) basically covers this eventuality. For example, any country act with a single Top 10 hit on the Hot 100 (e.g., Garth Brooks/Chris Gaines) will be covered by Rule 3.

I appreciate, Paul, that no OHW rule/set of rules is going to be perfect. But the end of your comment reveals the problem with coming up with any definition—one that takes into account a loose definition of "remembered" isn't much of a definition at all. I was attempting, however imperfectly, to come up with a rule that, by relying on data, simultaneously came closer to getting at that elusive public-perception factor. If we're going to base OHW status on something as subjective as what you're proposing, then you don't need an exercise like the one I offer above at all—except I can assure you that this sort of thing has been sought by thousands of chart geeks for years. I'm not the only one trying to come up with an objective measure for this.

@kicking222 The key in the rule is "*Top 10* or platinum." I threw in Top 10s because platinum albums are, in the modern era of low album sales, much harder to achieve, so I threw in Top 10 as a handicap for modern acts. But if I then allowed only two Top 10 albums, that'd be too easy, because the sales bar an act has to clear to score a Top 10 album is so low these days (as little as 20K). Hence I went with three, not two. Admittedly, I could have written the rule as "two platinum or three Top 10 albums."

You are correct that unquestioned OHW artists with only two platinum albums are rare; most acts who come close have one platinum and one gold (e.g., Sinead O'Connor, Devo, Twisted SIster). However, Sir Mix-a-Lot qualifies: two platinum albums ('Swass' and 'Mack Daddy') and just the one Top 40 hit, "Baby Got Back."

@cmolanphy I understand. I think it's just really difficult to come up with a way to define OHW using quantitative analysis. Because numbers are incredibly easy to manipulate and history has a way of obscuring the truth.

Think of the NBA and some of the great scorers who have had amazing seasons scoring the ball. You can look back on their stat line one year and say wow, on paper this guy is amazing. But that's on paper. In real life the guy could have been an albatross to his team and been a horrible player. He just happened to shoot a lot or something to that effect. Maybe his team that season was horrible.

Not a perfect analogy but you see what I'm getting at here? There has to be a qualitative aspect to determining these things. That's what I meant by "how an artist is remembered." Indeed, it's shaky doing that, but it's shaky with numbers too. So it's got to be a bit of a mix. Numbers alone really just leave too much to chance. If we were going by numbers, a bunch of cat videos are bigger hits on Youtube than 80% of the music industry. But we know that's not true. Because a person engages with a cat video different than a music video. So that "view" must be looked at through a different lens, and weighed differently.

I like what you propose in number 2 and 3, actually. Thing is, I think that second hit is usually too closely related to the success of the first one. It's almost breaking simply because of the buzz of the smash that is preceding. If you were a radio programmer and Carly Rae Jepsen just had this big monstrous first single, how could you not automatically throw the next one in rotation? That sort of thing affects chart positioning tremendously. And then we wind up with these conversations, in hindsight, where we're like, "Wow, so and so actually did have another hit. When the hell did that happen?" And with the albums, how many records are going platinum nowadays? Not that many. So that's a little tricky too.

Ultimately I think it's just really tough determining OHW status. I wrote a list a few months ago, here-- http://www.complex.com/music/2012/05/the-100-best-hip-hop-one-hit-wonders/ -- and it was pretty difficult even coming up with the criteria for determining these songs. It wound up just coming down to a mix of chart success and whether or not the act was really ever heard from again on a large scale.